By Simon Johnson

Will the Vickers Commission report on UK banking – with a preliminary report released today – have a major positive impact?  Not likely in our assessment – see today’s Daily Telegraph.

The fight to reform the banking system in the US and more broadly is largely over – and the bankers won.  A number of sensible ideas were put forward – including on creating a resolution authority, reducing the scale and scope of big banks, and significantly increasing capital requirements.  As reviewed by Peter Boone and me in this morning’s Financial Times, all of these initiatives have essentially failed.